the rix mix

The New York Times obituary calls him a "towering writer." When I was a teenager he was a towering presence. He wasn't even writing novels at the time, but he was everywhere - in magazines, on TV, had an opinion on everything. He was one model of what a writer could be & could do (reclusive J.D. Salinger at the other extreme). Mailer was as New York City as action painting, hard bop jazz, the five Mafia families, & the crazy old socialists who hung around the chess tables in Washington Square.